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Discussion Topic: Is There A Serial Killer At Work in Rocky Mount, NC.? |
1 AASojourn |
08-11-2009 @ 11:41 PM |
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Rocky Mount, North Carolina billboards show missing, murdered women.
ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. — The images of five missing and murdered Rocky Mount women now flash on billboards in Rocky Mount. The signs were placed on Tuesday to help raise awareness about the murders, which are being probed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
A community group, MOMS (Murdered or Missing Sisters) used fish fries and motorcycle rides to raise money for the three electronic billboards. The signs show each woman individually and then screen with all of them. A question mark represents a sixth unidentified victim.
“It lets me know that somebody does care,” said Diana Nicholson, mother of Taraha Shenice Nicholson, whose remains were found in March 7 on Marriott Road in Edgecombe County. The 28-year-old had been reported missing on Feb. 22
See WRAL news report
AASojourn
"If I could have convinced more people that they were slaves, I could have freed thousands more."
Harriet Tubman
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| 2thinker |
08-12-2009 @ 2:07 AM |
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AASojourn, I was very curious about this case, wondering, first of all, if the victims of this man thought to be a serial killer, were black. My curiosity prompted me to search the web for an indepth story about the killings. I learned the inevitable, of course. Fallen sisters looking for a quick buck by hawking their bodies! Shame, shame, shaame! To answer your title question, I'd say "Apparently, so!" Anyway, I found a story that can be found in a lot of large black urban communities, North or South! - thinker
Potential serial killer causes community to rally together
By Mike Hixenbaugh
Rocky Mount Telegram
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Turning tricks and the crack pipe have been her way of life for the better part of two decades, Denise Shae said last week, leaning forward on a leather couch in her disheveled Rocky Mount living room.
Prostitution isn’t the most virtuous way to pay bills, Shae admits, but that doesn’t mean she or others like her deserve to die.
“It doesn’t matter what you do or what you’re into,” Shae said. “Nobody has a right to kill. Nobody needs to die like that, naked out in the woods.”
Jarniece Latonya Hargrove
Since police publicly connected dots this month between a series of missing women and murders in her community, Shae said she has locked herself inside, terrified she’ll become the next in a line of small-framed, black women whose unclothed bodies have been dumped along rural Edgecombe County roads the past few years.
“It makes me scared,” said Shae, 45, whose name has been changed for confidentiality. “We’re all terrified.”
Whispers of a possible serial killer and rumors of more missing women have been on the lips of many throughout East Rocky Mount the past month, ever since a worker found the body of 31-year-old Jarniece Latonya Hargrove abandoned in the woods off Seven Bridges Road.
Authorities will not definitively say if the murders of Hargrove and five other women found dead over the past four years are related, but a series of similarities seems to link the cases.
All of the confirmed victims were black women found in remote locations near the eastern boundary of Rocky Mount, and each had a history of drug or alcohol abuse, according to criminal records. Each also was a known prostitute, according to Shae, who claimed to have “worked the same streets” and smoked crack with the victims.
Hargrove’s family said deputies told them each of the women was found without clothes, although authorities will not confirm the statement.
“The killings must be connected,” Shae said. “It’s too much similar between all them girls to just be coincidence.”
Profile of a Killer
While investigators seem reluctant to use the term “serial killer,” at least one national expert on such crimes says the murders almost certainly are related. John Kelly, profiler
and president of the New Jersey-based System to Apprehend Lethal Killers, or STALK, said he’s convinced a serial killer is preying on vulnerable women in East Rocky Mount.
Kelly, who played a role along with his partner Frank Adamson in helping profile and catch the Green River Killer in Seattle earlier this decade, said officials are wise to have formed a task force. The Edgecombe County Sheriff’s Office is leading a joint effort of area law enforcement and state investigators to determine if the murders are related, Sheriff James Knight said, declining further comment.
Kelly said the next step should be an active canvass of wooded areas where the bodies have been found, extending the search radius to a quarter of a mile or more.
At least three other women who match the profile of the victims — Yolanda Lancaster, Joyce Durham and Christine Boone — have been reported missing to Rocky Mount police the past several months. Each has yet to be found.
Ernestine Battle
“When you have a potential serial killer, you really have to push a full-court press investigating missing persons reports,” Kelly said, “especially when they match the profile.”
As more information becomes available, Kelly said he and his organization are willing to assist authorities in developing a potential profile of the killer.
“In most cases, the girls know this guy,” Kelly said. “They may not know they know him, but he’s addicted. Like someone who’s addicted to heroin, he’s addicted to being around the area, fantasizing about the girls. His drug is sexual power and control over these women, and he’s never satisfied.”The killer doesn’t feel remorse, Kelly said, and his chief motives are power, control and sex. He’s a slave to those desires, Kelly said.
“This guy is local,” he said. “And he will kill again. No doubt. Unless he’s in jail or dead, he will kill again.”
Jackie Nikelia Thorpe
Authorities would not say if they’ve made contact with outside psychological profilers like Kelly, or even if they believe they’re dealing with a habitual killer.
Regardless, Rocky Mount Police Chief John Manley is advising residents not to accept rides from people they don’t know and to be aware of who’s moving through their neighborhoods.
“Just common sense type precautions,” Manley said.
Risky Business
Common sense isn’t as cut-and-dry for people who move in and out of shadows, voluntarily risking danger, disease and the threat of violence as a means to pay bills or feed addictions.
Shae and others in her distressed neighborhood have made careers out of stepping into a stranger’s car in exchange for a hit on a crack pipe or cash. Not accepting a ride means not eating for some people, she said.
Shae’s own run-in with a violent customer hasn’t been enough to entirely deter her from the streets. A deep red-and-purple gash across Shae’s right shoulder is fresh reminder of the horrifying ride last month, she said.
Shae stepped into the car of a white man with a pushy voice who wanted sex, but he wasn’t easily satisfied. He grew violent, she said.
After more than an hour, the man steered toward a rural stretch of tobacco-flanked road just outside city limits, not far from where the bodies have been found.
“He just kept wanting more, and I started to get scared,” Shae said. “So I got out of there.”
Shae jumped from the car as he made a turn, she said, bashing her shoulder on asphalt before running away and calling for help. She never called police about the incident, fearful they might seek to add a few more charges to her already lengthy criminal record.
Shae said she knows other women with similar stories who are reluctant to come forward.
“I don’t think that was the guy who’s doing this, though,” Shae said. “All of those girls (who have been killed) were fighters like me. They would have gotten away.”
Kelly supported her suspicions. More than 80 percent of serial killers stalk women of their own race, he said.
Taraha Shenice Nicholson - photo wral.com
Shae theorized that whoever killed the women has rigged the passenger door of his vehicle, removing the interior paneling so it can’t be opened from the inside.
“I don’t get into cars like that anymore,” Shae said.
A Terrifying Ride
Women who dabble in drugs and trade their bodies for cash aren’t the only people shaken by the string of murders.
Most households in Rocky Mount’s largely impoverished east side have been talking about missing girls and prospects of a serial killer for the better part of the past year, Sheniece Thompson said.
“It makes you scared, you know,” Thompson said, standing on her porch on Arlington Street. “You don’t know who’s doing this or if you could be next.”
Thompson, 26, said she and her sisters “live stand-up lives.” Still, she can remember hitchhiking across town to a friend’s house last summer.
“That will be the last time,” she said.
Lanessa Williams has been putting out the call to all the women in her neighborhood the past several months — regardless of whether they work the streets or just walk them: “Don’t get in anybody’s car,” she says.
Williams, 38, said she took a ride from a black man last summer who offered to take her to a friend’s house in the projects. The drive started smooth, Williams said, and the two shared a few hits on a crack pipe. Sex wasn’t part of the deal.
“I don’t do that stuff,” Williams said.
Melody Wiggins
But the man drove past her friend’s neighborhood and toward the country, she said, his voice seeming to grow harsher with each passing mile.
“I asked him to stop, but he wouldn’t stop,” Williams said. “He told me ‘If you don’t do what I want you to do, I’m going to kill you and throw you in the river.’”
When the man parked on a dark road and made sexual advances, Williams said, instincts pushed her to her feet. She ran and hid in a ditch for several minutes before escaping to a nearby residence
Rocky Mount police said they plan to meet with Williams to explore any possible connections between her case and the murders.
Williams said the man drove a black pickup with “Chevrolet” hand-painted on the back. The alleged abductor was a skinny, black man with a light mustache, Williams said.
Soon after her encounter, Williams said she found a place to stay and has stopped doing drugs.
“We gottta look out for each other,” Williams said. “That’s why I’m speaking out, to tell these young girls to be safe. Women are being killed, but just because you smoke don’t mean you deserve to die.”
Respect for the Dead
Pepita Hargrove wept last week when funeral officials pulled a cover from the decomposing remains of her sister, Jarniece Hargrove.
It’s hard, she said, to shake the image of her sister struggling against a strange man, before ultimately being strangled to death and dumped in the woods.
“My sister was so loving,” Pepita said after authorities told her family Jarniece was dead. “She was into some stuff — she always struggled with drugs — but she had a very loving heart.”
In some parts of Rocky Mount, Latonia Taylor said, the string of murders is all anyone talks about. In other parts, nobody seems to care, she said.
“Everyone in my neighborhood is scared, and we want justice,” said Taylor, who knew three of the victims. “But most of my friends who live across town didn’t even know anything about it until I told them. I mean, women are dying.”
Rocky Mount Councilman and local NAACP President Andre Knight said he wonders if the murders would garner more local and national attention if the victims came from different backgrounds. Either way, he’s challenging federal investigators to launch a probe into the case.
A group of East Rocky Mount residents, many of whom knew the victims, has launched a campaign to raise awareness about the murders and create a team to canvass the areas where women have been found.
Willette Battle stood under the hot afternoon sun Friday on Fairview Road holding a sign that read: “Their lifestyles shouldn’t mean they get a death sentence.” Battle, who knew three of the victims and at least one of the missing women, worked to flag down motorists, hoping to sell plates of food to raise money and awareness.
“Nobody is paying attention, it seems like,” Battle said. “These women were fun to be around and they loved to laugh. They lived tough lives, but they were all beautiful. Nobody cares about that, seems like.”
If the women had different names or were of a different race from a different part of town, Battle said, the outcry would be national, and it would be relentless.
“That’s not the case, but we’re working to change that,” Battle said.
Regardless of media or community attention, Pepita Hargrove said she prays authorities catch whoever might be responsible for the killings and, more than anything, hopes her sister and the other victims will be remembered as more than drug-addicted prostitutes.
“These girls are all someone’s sister or someone’s daughter or someone’s mother,” Pepita said. “It doesn’t seem like anybody cares about that. My sister was a good person.
“I want justice to be brought to whoever’s doing this.”
Think love, not hate!
This message was edited by thinker on 8-12-09 @ 2:57 AM
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| 3thinker |
08-12-2009 @ 2:33 AM |
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Willette Battle, right, and Zemira Wiggins try to attract customers to a fish fry to raise money for a billboard promoting awareness about a string of murdered women during the past four years. -Telegram photo / Alan Campbell
Think love, not hate!
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| 4AASojourn |
08-12-2009 @ 11:37 AM |
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thinker
You sure found a lot more info than I on on this case.
You know I generally stay away from the crime side of the forum but my reasons for posting this are a few. First, if there is a serial killer out there it's important that as many sisters and their families as possible are made aware of this so as not to become victims. Second the more folks aware of this the better the chances of catching the perp and last but not least as this quote from the Electronic Villager blog says -
"This group, MOMS, is providing all of us with a powerful example. If we see a problem ... take action. Do what you can do with what you have to make a difference. I wonder if we are willing to learn from their example?"
AASojourn
"If I could have convinced more people that they were slaves, I could have freed thousands more."
Harriet Tubman
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| 5thinker |
08-12-2009 @ 12:06 PM |
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AASojourn, I agree with your reasons for posting this. Sisters should be made aware. I wasn't happy, however, with how quickly Shae was to dismiss the possibility of the serial killer being a yt man, since they are more likely to commit such crimes than a black man.
“I don’t think that was the guy who’s doing this, though,” Shae said.
So easily duped and misled, some might say.
Think love, not hate!
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| 6LA90056 |
08-16-2009 @ 5:08 PM |
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One of my staff brought this story to our attention a few weeks ago.
Over-all there has been little attention paid to this despicable crime and I have to think it is because these women were not only black but uneducated and poor.
No matter if they were prostitutes or drug users or whatever they are human beings and no one should be the judge and jury of their fate by killing them.
There are some sick, S.O.B.'s in this world.
We are keeping an eye on this one, and good job to MOMS for not forgetting these women.
Apparenting there is some movememnt as someone has posted.
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| 7BWPStaff |
09-24-2009 @ 5:45 PM |
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Anybody know anything else about this?
[The site avatar creates discussions from community & popular topics]
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| 8Respectme1 |
09-25-2009 @ 5:50 AM |
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While there are exceptions to the standard most serial killers fit the following profile
"The "typical" profile of a serial killer is a Caucasian male between the ages of 18 and 32. There will be evidence of child abuse in his background. In his background, he will show signs of the McDonald triad which are bedwetting beyond the age of ten, abuse to animals, and a history of arson. The serial killer will operate by himself. This set profile does not encompass every serial killer. There have been many serial killers that do not fit this profile. For this reason alone, the standard or set profile of a serial killer is used to aid in an investigation, not run it."
Female serial killers such as Aileen Wournos executed by the state of Florida for killing her john are rare. She was still Caucasian.
Black serial killers such as Wayne Williams, the Atlanta Child Murders, are rarer still. I don't even know of a case of a black female serial killer.
This is the standard profile that has stood for years and years, and when you make a list of known serial killers they are 99.9% of the time Causcasian males.
AlamoGirl Rides again! And yeah it's Still about Respect!
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| 9AASojourn |
09-28-2009 @ 12:37 PM |
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Antwan Maurice Pittman: Have Police Caught a Serial Killer in Rocky Mount, North Carolina?
By Pete Kotz in homicide, serial killersWednesday, Sep. 2 2009 @ 10:25AM
Antwan Maurice Pittman, charged with strangling a woman in March
?Since 2005, six women have been murdered near Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Another three are missing. But police now believe they've solved at least one of the slayings.
Antwan Maurice Pittman, a registered sex offender, is charged with the murder of Taraha Shenice Nicholson, 28, who was found strangled in the woods in March. Investigators are still probing whether Pittman may have been involved in the other killings and disappearances, which targeted prostitutes and drug addicts.
Pittman was convicted in 1992 of sexual abusing a 2-year-old, for which he spent just three years in prison. He also has lesser convictions for crimes ranging from assault to resisting arrest. But police either don't know -- or won't say -- whether he had a hand in the dead bodies that have been turning up in this rural area for the last four years...
Read more
AASojourn
"If I could have convinced more people that they were slaves, I could have freed thousands more."
Harriet Tubman
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| 10AASojourn |
09-28-2009 @ 12:39 PM |
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NC suspect's neigbors doubt police nabbed a killer
The Associated Press
Friday, September 04, 2009
ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. — Neighbors of a man accused of killing one of six women found dead on the outskirts of rural Rocky Mount say he kept mostly to himself, but many are convinced he's innocent.
Antwan Maurice Pittman, 31, was charged with first-degree murder Monday in the death of 29-year-old Taraha Shenice Nicholson who was found strangled, her body dumped down a rural stretch of road where five other women have been found dead. Nicholson, like most of the slain women, had a history of drug abuse and prostitution.
The Edgecombe County sheriff formed a task force with the State Bureau of Investigation and asked the FBI to consult after the sixth body was discovered in June.
Neighbors in Pittman's run-down neighborhood in Rocky Mount, about 50 miles east of Raleigh, said they don't know Pittman well, but they're skeptical of police.
"I wouldn't even believe he killed the first one," said 56-year-old neighbor Leroy Silver from a yard sale in his backyard, just around the corner from the house where Pittman lived with his mother and girlfriend. "I would see him around — he's just a normal person."
Other neighbors sifting through card tables filled with glassware and old T-shirts jumped in to speculate that the murder was pinned on Pittman and that the police have no evidence. "They're just assuming!" one woman shouted before asking the price of a fishing rod.
Other neighbors say they're scared because they think the real killer is still out there and three women are still missing.
"I don't think that boy ever had a car," added Silver, wondering how Pittman could have picked up Nicholson and dumped her body on theoutskirts of town without a car.
Read More..
AASojourn
"If I could have convinced more people that they were slaves, I could have freed thousands more."
Harriet Tubman
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| 11Respectme1 |
09-28-2009 @ 2:42 PM |
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AA, considering who has proven time and time again that they get their jollies from sexual murders I'm very interested to see how this pans out. I'm not saying that they don't have the serial killer, I'm saying the odds are very, very low.
AlamoGirl Rides again! And yeah it's Still about Respect!
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